News featuring CGH students, faculty, and alumni

Faculty and alumni spoke on a panel to highlight the public health impact on global communities, including immigration crises, planetary health, climate change, and the importance of health systems. KELLY SALDANA (BCHS ’01) talked about creating resiliency and figuring out what that means both at the individual level and the systems level to help lessen negative effects of climate change.

As an international student, LYCIA NEUMANN always had the intention to take the skills she has learned at Pitt Public Health back to her home in Brazil. Because of the scholarship, she was able to study the profile and unmet needs of cancer patients' family caregivers in Brazil. Her experience has taught her important lessons, such as, " Go with a good plan and a contact. Don't wait to develop your project until you get there."

“Pittsburgh is a great city,“ said BRENDAN DECENSO. “But take opportunities to go work elsewhere – it will change you for the better.” After seeing frustrating inequalities among countries related to HIV, he was inspired to practice medicine internationally. He organized a project for himself in Lima, Peru and says that h would not have been able to have the experience he had without the aid from the scholarship.

MICHELE BUZZELLI (BCHS ’15) is putting her MPH to work this fall teaching courses in global health at the Northampton Community College’s Monroe Campus in Tannersville, PA. Buzzelli will also teach a required first-semester course for incoming students entitled College Success which helps students navigate the college environment.

Amber Chaudry, an MPH student in Pitt's Department of Behavioral and Community Health Sciences, shares some of her passion for a career in public health and how helping those around her is integral to her own vision of success.

Rosa De Ferrari, an MPH student in Pitt's Department of Behavioral and Community Health Sciences, describes her "viviencias" (life experiences) in Ecuador and Nicaragua. She soon realized that immigrants in this country long for the kinds of social support inherent to their native communities. As she continues her journey at Pitt Public Health, she most appreciates the ready accessibility of faculty and the variety of research areas she can choo...

WRCT PITTSBURGH / BARRIO LATINO - Camilo Ruiz, student in the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health's Department of Behavioral and Community Health Sciences, discusses "Ojo Latino" on Pittsburgh's Spanish-language radio program. The community photographic project was led by Pitt Public Health's Center for Health Equity to displays daily life aspects of Latino women and men living in Pittsburgh. On display through April 24, 20...

INSIDEUPMC.UPMC.COM -- Pitt’s Global Health Student Association recently traveled to Lima, Peru, on a week-long service trip. GHSA is composed of grad students who share an interest in global health and believe health care should be available to everyone. The students collaborated with MedLife to help provide preventative screening, health care and service to community members living in poverty.

MELISSA KNORR (BCHS ’16) is the operations manager at The Open Door, Inc., where she first interned in 2014. During her time at Pitt, Melissa was an Evans Fellow, pursuing the joint MPH/masters in social work. She also served as an administrative intern for Bridging the Gaps and a board member of the Global Health Student Association. Previously, Knorr served in the Peace Corps in Zambia, Belize, and Costa Rica in the health, education, and youth...

Even before completing her MPH and global health studies, TAYLORDAPHNE MORSILLO (BCHS ’16) began working on the Plan for a Healthier Allegheny at the Allegheny County Health Department where she also supports the epidemiologist and manager of special projects. Previously, she served as a U.S. Peace Corps volunteer in Mozambique where her assignment focused on community and local hospital health presentations and direct work with an I-NGO, a provi...

Vice president for education, KATHARINE HOROWITZ (BCHS ’12) has been with Planned Parenthood of Western PA for nearly five years. She is a born-and-bred Pittsburgher, driven to improve sexual and reproductive health outcomes for everyone in the dynamic communities that make up our city. Horowitz has worked in youth development for eight years, having started her career leading summer trail crews with the Student Conservation Association. While pu...

MARA LEFF (BCHS ’15) is a program associate for the Jewish Healthcare Foundation working on planning and implementation across projects, including support for the foundation’s Aging Agenda. Previously, she worked on an NIH-funded childhood obesity prevention campaign at Ogilvy Public Relations, a global marketing and communications firm in Washington, D.C. While an MPH student, she conducted practicum research in India, informing her thesis, “Th...

AIDS AND BEHAVIOR - Congratulations to Ron Stall, James Egan, and the Pitt/amFAR fellows on their profiled work in HIV-prevention research regarding gay, MSM and transgender (GMT) populations in low- and middle-income countries. "The HIV Scholars Program at the University of Pittsburgh’s Center for LGBT Health Research is a prime example of a creative and dynamic approach to raising the expertise needed within GMT populations to respond to the gl...

NATURE - In its " Nature' s 10" list of ten scientists who mattered this year, the international weekly journal of science recognized Cura Zika advisor, CELINA MARTELLI TURCHI for her work as the 'Zika detective' who raced to make sense of a medical mystery in northeast Brazil.

PITTSBURGH POST GAZETTE profiles Pitt Public Health alumna Kate Fletcher (HSA ‘80) as part of the #ItsGoodToGive series. After serving as a nun, primary school teacher, nursing home manager, and then adjunct professor, Fletcher decided at age 64 to follow destiny’s call to Kenya. In response to the plight of millions of orphans in sub-Sahara Africa, she has dedicated the last 14 years to establishing Hekima Place, a children’s home in Kenya f...

WESA-FM - The University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health has announced the recipients of the first round of funding for its Cura Zika initiative. Six research projects that interrogate three different approaches were chosen to receive the $400,000 in funding. Two researchers are looking at ways to diagnose the virus, two are trying to understand how the virus causes disease, and two are pursuing vaccine technologies.